


Beyond Reasonable Doubt

by cowboykylux



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Courtroom Drama, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Murder Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rival Relationship, Rivalry, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28923885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboykylux/pseuds/cowboykylux
Summary: You and Kylo Ren have hated one another for as long as you can remember. He, a criminal prosecutor, and you, a defense attorney should be natural-born enemies -- and you are. But when Kylo comes to you seeking representation after being charged for a murder he didn’t commit, you both learn a thing or two about life, the law, and love…
Relationships: Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Reader, Kylo Ren/Reader
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	Beyond Reasonable Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh hello everyone! This is the start to my new chapter fic which takes place in the Lawyer!AU that I can't get enough of. I'll be updating the character tags as well as the content tags as the chapters are finished and posted. Hope you all enjoy!

In a world of ever-changing circumstances, where people do things that cause ripples and shocks through the very fabric of society that shake them to their core, where the sun shines and rain falls and snow blows cold through the streets of Manhattan, where there is life and death and a mess of bullshit in between, there was but one thing that you could ever comfortably rely on in life.

Only one thing remained constant in the grand scheme of it all: your alarm.

With a grunt and sigh, your arm extends out from underneath the covers to smack at the loud blaring jingle that sounds from your phone, hand desperately trying to hit the dismiss button without looking so that you don’t have to face the day just yet. It’s too early, you reason, to pull your whole self out from under the covers.

Eventually you give that thought up though, because dammit now you’re awake and it’s Monday morning and you have an office that’s waiting for you uptown. So, ever grudgingly, you throw the plush comforter off of your body and stretch to greet the day, saying good morning to the city that never sleeps.

You don’t usually dread waking up, but well, the last time you’d been in the office was Friday afternoon, after you lost your case.

After you lost your case, to _him._

Glancing at the clock on your phone, you chew your lip for a moment or two, before finally turning off the _do not disturb_ function, immediately going into the bathroom to shower and ready yourself for the day while damn near a hundred backlogged notifications make your phone buzz nearly onto the floor.

There’s a small mirror in the shower, a little compact to make sure there’s nothing left on your face after you scrub your skin clean, and you catch your own reflection in it. You’ve looked better, that was for damn sure – but by that same token, you’ve also looked worse. Mondays were shit, but today was gearing up to be an even worse one than normal.

 _No_ , you think as you shake your head adamantly, you have no desire to let him soak up any more of your good mood than he had already. So what if you had forgone your entire weekend, canceling plans and ignoring friends to nurse the sting to your pride that was losing? So what if instead of checking your email or your phone, you sat yourself on the couch and wasted two entire days doing nothing but watching shitty shows on Netflix?

What you did on your downtime was nobodies’ business, and since you live alone in your beautiful one-bedroom in SoHo, no one was there to spill your secrets. If anyone asked – not that anyone would, if they knew what was good for them – you would tell them that you absolutely did not spend the weekend wanting to throw darts onto a photo of his face. That wouldn’t be very professional, now would it?

Shutting off the water, you wrap yourself up in a big plush towel, and pad across the floor to your closet. Briefly, ever so briefly, you glance at your phone on your way, holding your breath, wondering, hoping that there might be something from him.

If there is, it’s buried under a pile of emails and text-threads from your firm, so he’ll have to wait.

Manhattan in January was chilly, so you bundle yourself up in your chicest coat overtop your most well-fitting skirt suit and a pair of heeled boots. Even if you felt like shit, you could look like million fuckin’ bucks, and no one would be the wiser.

And what a wonder the power of confidence was! Through the streets and down to the subway, you smiled at everyone, and they all smiled back. You offered your seat on the train to an elderly man who clearly needed it more than you, and he complimented your gloves. Everyone from the NYPD officer drinking his coffee to the mom scolding her three children brightened as you wished them a good morning, and somehow, along the way to work, your Monday blues disappears into something a little brighter.

* * *

Your good mood only continues to grow as you exit the elevator of the huge high-rise that you call your home away from home, your office on the twenty-third floor right in the heart of the Upper West Side. Sandwiched between the Hudson and Central Park, you have to admit that getting your ass out of bed was worth it, even if just for this view.

“Morning (Y/N).” The front desk security guard greets you, and you say hello back to him with a performative show of your badge.

HKS Law, so named after the founders and current partners Amilyn Holdo, Ben Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker, is a shining pinnacle of what defense attorneys and opposing counsel at trials should be. Not only had the firm made history time and time again with incredible wins and even more incredible ultimate losses, but it prided itself on being representation for the people no one else could represent.

Most of all, it had you.

If your alarm was a constant, than this was a universal truth: you are a _damn_ good defense attorney. As you walk through the crisp and clean polished floors, you hold your head high, knowing that this loss against him still put you at the lowest loss rate of anyone in the history of HKS, lower than even the founders themselves.

That little reminder has you grinning to yourself. You’d been working with HKS for nearly six years now, and very quickly you saw your office climbing higher and higher up the skyscraper, saw it getting bigger and bigger. And now, you were nearly positive, that your meeting at eleven o’clock would be to discuss partnership with the firm as a reward for your continued hard work.

“Hey (Y/N)!” One of the associates, Rose Tico smiles at you from where she’s chatting with her sister Paige by their desks. 

“Someone looks like they had a nice weekend.” Paige remarks, and you only wink at them, playing the game.

A game, which becomes instantly easier as your assistant, a bright-eyed intern fresh out of law school appears seemingly out of nowhere.

“(Y/N), good morning!” She is already offering you a cup of something nice and hot, her arm cradling a stack of manilla folders that have all sorts of sticky-note flags on them, that she shifts onto her hip ever so slightly to brush a few loose braids out of her face, speaking at what feels like a million miles a second, “I have your coffee ready and there’s a fresh breakfast buffet in the break room if you’d like, I can get you something – ”

“Good morning Neisha.” You accept the coffee gratefully, but interrupting her only to give her a chance to catch her breath. You check your watch, it’s only half-past seven, she’ll wear herself out if she exerts that much energy first thing. “A bagel with the usual would be perfect, thank you.”

“No problem – oh, Rick wanted you to look over those case files before your eleven-o’clock.” She breathes a sigh of relief, and gives you a smile.

Groaning, you accept the manilla folders too, balancing the coffee cup on top of them as Iman follows you into your own private office. Your assistant stands in front of your desk at the ready, looking sharp and put together, as ever.

One thing that you loved about Neisha – aside from the dozens of things that you admired and appreciated about her – was that you have never ever seen her in something other than a pantsuit. She did not wear dresses or skirts, she was almost never in heels, and she did not carry a purse. Instead, Neisha could almost always be found in a very smart trouser and blazer set, often complete with vests, and fun-colored socks in her loafers to coordinate with her ever-expanding collection of ties.

“Rick can go fuck himself.” You mutter under your breath, and she laughs.

“Should I tell him you said that?” With a playful glimmer in her eye, she crosses her arms over her broad chest.

“Yes.” You wink, before checking your watch once again and reminding her about that, “Bagel?”

“Bagel – right, on it.” Neisha snaps her fingers and leaves, closing the office door behind her.

You like your office, even if you’ve outgrown it. Much like the rest of the firm, it has stayed up to date with the contemporary interior design of the day. However where the open floor of the firm is mostly whites and silvers and glass, your office feels warmer with shades of coffee browns and creamy neutrals. Remembering how you had been so excited for the promotion to your own office, you can’t help but chuckle to yourself now – it really was a small office. It consisted of a long dark brown desk situated in front of a wall-unit bookshelf/display area, and a seating arrangement of matching brown chairs situated around a free-edge wooden coffee-table. A soft rug covers the marble flooring, and cream gauzy curtains cover the windows, but that was about it.

You had been to the offices of the higher ups, you knew just what you could achieve if you made partner – even if you made junior partner.

And if all went well during this meeting at eleven, you knew you’d be moving into one of those offices soon.

For the first time all weekend, you sit down in the big leather chair behind your desk and finally check your phone. The case files remain on your desk, and you know you’ll get to them eventually, but until you’ve had some breakfast and that coffee can work its magic, no one could blame you for scrolling through the shit that you had put off since Friday.

It’s mostly work friends taking your side, which you appreciate. They knew losing a case was hard for you – you didn’t do it very often. And even though you never lost to anyone besides him, it still never got easier.

The case had been a simple one, or at least, you had thought so. Murders are so often simple, either the person did it, or they didn’t. If they did, there’s evidence, and if they didn’t, well, there’s evidence too. And when two parties come forward with their own evidence, compelling, strong fucking evidence – evidence of alibis and proof that your client couldn’t have been there, couldn’t have done it – it’s up to the jury to decide who to believe.

In this case, this jury decided to believe him, and there was nothing you could do about it. It was losses like this, losses like the knowledge than an innocent man was going to prison, that make you seriously question the legal system as a whole, frankly.

It’s then that you see it, and your hand freezes.

You have a missed message from him.

He’s saved in your contacts as _the dick from VTH,_ and even though that could refer to any number of people, you know that it’s him. You have five missed messages from him, as a matter of fact, which sends both a rush of adrenaline through you, as well as a spike of anxiety.

The two of you…you’d never been friends, not really. In fact, the closest thing to a relationship that you might have is that of a rivalry, if not flat out enemies. You hated him, and he hated you, and he had hated you ever since the first day he set eyes on you, from the very first moment you walked into the courtroom as a last-minute addition to the defense counsel, and won the case in fifteen minutes.

Which was a shame, because you often find yourself thinking that if he weren’t such a…well, a dick, there could have been something there. Instead of a friendship, or even a civil acquaintanceship, you have over the years developed something of a hate-fucking-enemies-with-benefits arrangement. He was probably pissed that you ignored him all weekend, but that was okay – let him be pissed, you were pissed too.

You don’t open his messages, not yet. You’d need coffee in you and food in your stomach before you’re able to handle whatever mood he has to be in, now that you’ve got the energy to deal with him.

You’re so deep in thought that you nearly miss when Neisha returns with a plate for you, a big spread arranged on your desk for you to enjoy. You’re about to thank her and let her get on with whatever work she has to do, but she holds out a newsletter with a devious smile and curiosity gets the better of you.

“Have you seen?” She asks, and you raise a brow, a smile of your own creeping across your face.

The newsletter was something that circulated through the different firms in the area, keeping everyone up to date – or at least as up to date as legally possible – on the goings on in the sphere of influence that you all found yourselves in. Everything from congratulatory memos to case results, and even high profile celebrity gossip was fair game, but one of the more scandalous parts of the newsletter, was the publication of trouble that various lawyers found themselves in.

The Monday morning newsletter had quite a bit of this from over the weekend, and right there on page sixteen, is none other than his face looking as irritated as he possibly can, as he’s being given a hard time for a DUI on Friday night.

“Oh fuck.” Your eyes widen, wanting nothing more than to call him and yell at him for being a fucking idiot, “What the hell does he think he’s doing?”

“Whatever he wants, evidently.” Neisha shrugs, no doubt thinking the news would cheer you up in some sort of vengeful way that you appreciate. She reaches for a pumpernickel crisp from the spread on your desk and muses, “I bet the cops are thrilled, they hate that sonofabitch.”

“Yeah them and me both.” You mutter, already rubbing away a headache that’s starting to form across the expanse of your forehead. “He’s not going to be pleased about that photo, he looks rumpled.”

Sighing, you look down at the photo. He’s very clearly intoxicated, you’ve seen that look in his eyes more than once, the blurry out of focused glassy look that he gives you over smiles at dinner sometimes. You blink away the image of him in a nice suit on the other end of a table, reminding yourself that you’re angry with him.

“Doesn’t he have a driver? I wonder why he got behind the wheel himself.” Neisha continues, and bless her you think, for continually giving you a means to not be left alone with your thoughts.

“If there’s one thing I know about that man, it’s that when he sets him mind to something, no one is going to stop him from doing it.” You reply, not able to ignore a bit of gut-wrenching regret.

Maybe if you hadn’t been so mad at him, you could’ve gone with him to wherever he was coming back from, and maybe you could’ve --

“Should I have this framed?” Neisha asks, and you blink again.

You check your watch, it’s only a quarter ‘til eight. Have you really only been at work for fifteen minutes? That stack of folders sits on the edge of your desk, taunting you. You’re gearing up for an extra long day.

“No, that’s okay.” You shake your head, opening the bottom drawer of your desk and dropping the newsletter into it. “I _will_ keep a hold onto it though. Just for fun.”

With a laugh, Neisha leaves and once again closes your office door.

“God dammit.” You grumble, pulling your phone out yet again.

The unread messages from him sit buried beneath thirty other messages that don’t warrant responses, and you hover your thumb over his name.

After all these years, something about getting a text from him made your heart jump. It felt stupid, you weren’t some teenager with a crush in high school, you were an adult, and this was just another adult, who you happened to have developed some sort of attachment to. Not a friendship, or a relationship even, but some kind of attachment.

Right now, you wanted to bitch at him for getting himself into trouble, for driving while he was so very clearly drunk, a whole argument prepared about how he could have seriously hurt or even killed someone, how even though he’s a rich asshole he can’t afford to be so reckless.

But first, in order to bitch at him, you have to read what he’s sent you over the weekend, and that’s where you keep tripping up. You don’t know why, but when you do finally open up his texts, you find that you’re holding your breath until you read them.

You try to ignore the way the thread starts out, try to ignore how if anyone were to squint, they might think something was going on between you two.

**_Incoming: [1/8 6:03am]_ just picking up croissants from that place u like. jam?**

**_[1/8 6:10am]_ Yeah, raspberry if they have**

**_Incoming: [1/8 6:11am]_ on it, go back 2 bed.**

That had been just over a week ago, and you remember the day well, how you exchanged smiles over bites of fresh and flaky pastry, how you had dipped the croissants into hot chocolate in his bed, not giving a fuck about the crumbs that weren’t your problem because they weren’t your sheets.

How that was the last time you had seen him, before the conclusion of the case.

Now, now that you’d lost, the tone of the thread has very clearly shifted to something much colder. One thing you’re surprised to see though, is that they’re all from around Friday night, which was unusual.

**_Incoming: [1/15 7:43pm]_ going out 2 celebrate tonight, join me **

**_Incoming: [1/15 8:57pm]_ u can’t ignore me forever u know**

**_Incoming: [1/16 12:02am]_ i’m glad u didn’t come, ud fucking hate it here. theyre playing music 2 loud **

**_Incoming: [1/16 12:15am]_ r u seriously still mad? **

**_Incoming: [1/16 1:09am]_ Fuck you. **

Rolling your eyes, you rub away more of that headache that starts to form. It was weird that he didn’t text you at all for the whole day of Saturday, or Sunday for that matter. If you didn’t spend the weekend together, he was very content to simply blow your phone up with links to random bullshit or long text conversations in broken grammar because his thumbs were too big for the buttons.

So for there to be radio silence after one o’clock in the morning was strange.

“For fucks sake.” You find yourself texting him back without even thinking about it, your fingers moving over the keyboard easily and quickly, sending off a slightly antagonizing reply after two days of nothing;

**_[1/18 7:55am]_ Looks like you had quite the night on Friday. **

_There_ , you think, _That should get a response out of him._ No doubt he would be quick to complain about how he had been pulled over and the whole nine yards. You wait for it to come through, the text. Or more accurately, the string of impassioned paragraphs that he tends to send you.

But a minute go by, and there’s nothing.

Five minutes, and nothing still.

You know you have to work, you have shit to do, you have that big meeting in a couple hours that you have to mentally prepare for, there’s no time to be worrying about him not texting you back. Still, you don’t like the silence. Sure that makes you a hypocrite, but he deserved your cold shoulder for beating you in court. At least, that’s how you justify it for yourself.

Getting up from your desk, you hover in the doorframe, where your assistant’s desk sits just outside to act as a buffer for anyone wanting to bother you.

“Hey Neisha?” You ask quietly, getting her attention, “I haven’t missed any calls, have I?”

A crease of confusion dips between her brows as she frowns, and immediately she checks the call logs on the conference phone that sits on her desk next to the big computer that takes up most of her space.

“No not that I can think of, are you expecting someone – ?”

Just as she’s asking, the phone rings. You lean over and see the number is one you don’t recognize, and you frown too.

“Better get that.” Neisha says awkwardly, so you just nod and retreat back into your own office from where you came.

It’s been seven minutes now, and there’s still nothing from him.

“Fine, fuck you too.” You mutter at the phone, locking it and putting it in the shallow drawer of your desk so you can focus on the folders in front of you finally.

The stack is pretty normal, all the weekend material finally coming in now that it’s the start of a new week. There’s new case files to look through to decide if you’re doing to accept the client, supplementary material from old case files that you’ve asked for to review, notes and evidence belonging to associates’ cases that you said you’d give your opinion on – all mixed into one big pile.

You liked it though, liked staying busy. It was a good distraction from a loss, the ability to win, the ability to prove to yourself and to the world that you’re good at what you do. There are all sorts of awards and pieces of paper displayed on the walls of your office that show that you’re good, but still, there’s nothing like a strong win after a frustrating loss.

But you’re not even halfway through reading the first folder, when Neisha knocks on your door and opens it slowly, a look of preemptive apology on her face.

“I’m afraid you’re going to need to cancel your eleven o’clock.” She says, and you can tell by the tone of her voice that there’s no use in trying to argue with her.

You let the folder fall down onto the desk, and brace yourself for whatever bombshell she’s about to drop on you, what could possibly be so important for you to have to reschedule one of the biggest meetings of your career. They would understand, you’re sure.

You hope, anyway.

“Who is it?” Your tone is already filled with dread, but a resigned kind of dread, knowing that whatever it must be, it has to be big, and you’re the only one in this entire fucking firm who can handle big things like this – it was the reason they wanted you for partner in the first place.

But Neisha hesitates with this response, scratches the back of her neck in a way that makes you instantly curious.

“I…I was instructed not to say, just that you’ve been requested to meet with them regarding representation.” She tells you, and now your headache pounds even harder.

Clients didn’t withhold their identity from you; some used an alias of course, but you can’t say that so far in your career you’ve had a completely anonymous client. Whoever this person was, had to either be royalty, or something very very close.

And though that meant there was going to be a nightmare of a trial – because these high profile people almost never got to simple settle, not when the prosecutor wants to make a show of prosecuting them – you can’t help but think that would be a pretty good notch in your beltloop, as it were.

“Alright, where are they?” You’re already up and away from your desk, shuffling the case files into a locked cabinet.

“Rikers.” She says straight away, and you let out a groan.

“Of _course_ they are.”

You had almost hoped that whoever this mystery client was, they had posted bail and could meet at a nice neutral location. You didn’t have anything against Rikers personally, but rather the entire prison industrial complex as a whole, and as far as New York prisons went, there were few more infamous for being unnecessarily brutal than Rikers Island.

“I can call them back and tell them you’re busy…but they sounded adamant about wanting you in particular.” Neisha nudges gently, and really there’s no need to butter you up, you’ve already made up your mind.

“I’m guessing they didn’t tell you why?” You ask, even though you know the answer.

“Correct.” She replies with a sheepish shrug.

You look at her, at your watch, at your phone screen which shows no new notifications from the last time that you checked it, and you square your shoulders. 

“Alright, reschedule the eleven o’clock, and let’s get out of here before Holdo freaks the fuck out on me for that.” You say, grabbing your coffee and a few more of the pastries to take in the car with you for the drive.

* * *

Most times, you have no problem taking the subway wherever you need to get, but visiting Rikers wasn’t as easy as hopping off the train and walking a couple blocks. For times like these, you and Neisha take one of the company cars, a sleek and shiny black thing with dark tinted windows. Cars really aren’t practical in the city, which is why you don’t have one of your own, but it was nice to be driven around from time to time in the peace and quiet of a car like this.

Normally, visitors are not allowed on Mondays or Tuesdays, but you’re not a normal person, and you’re not here for a normal visit, so once you pass through the security gate, the K-9 unit and the metal detector security tests with ease, you find it a pretty quiet lobby.

“Good afternoon Ms. (L/N), here on official duty?” One of the correctional officers that sits up by the front visitation desk beams at you.

“No, I just missed you Jake.” You reply, fishing out your identification for him even though he really doesn’t need it. Jake has worked there only a year or so, and every time you see him you can’t help but think he’s young, too young for this job, you think, too young to become desensitized to the humanity of incarcerated individuals. But that’s not a conversation that you’re here to have today, so instead you keep up the chitchat with, “How’s Lottie and the kids?”

“They’re good, who are you here for?” Jake asks as a matter of protocol, and you give Neisha a look, before looking back at him.

“That’s just the thing, I don’t know. I wasn’t informed for confidentiality reasons.” You try to explain, before leaning forward and mock-whispering to him, “Please tell me someone has me on the list and I didn’t drive all this way for nothing.”

Jake laughs, a sound that feels out of place in a place like this, and pulls something up on his computer. You can’t really see it, the list, and that’s okay. Whoever this mysterious person is, you’ll find out within just a few minutes.

“You know the drill, they’re waiting for you in the back.” Jake waves you off, and you’re glad to go.

“Wait out here.” You tell Neisha, who clearly looks uncomfortable even being in the lobby, and with good reason. She doesn’t argue you on that, instead takes a seat on a bench near Jake’s table, and the two of them get to chatting while your boots click on the floors as you walk away.

There’s a couple different visitation areas in the jail, and the deeper into the building you go, the more that you’re glad that visitation isn’t allowed on Mondays. You don’t want the chance of running into someone that you had failed. Granted there had only been a handful of those instances, but the thought of any one of them being here is not outside the realm of possibility.

Through the sea of empty tables and chairs that are reserved for long term inmates who happen to have visitation privileges for good behavior, you find yourself moving deeper and deeper, until you’re at the door of another room, a closed off one more typical to that seen in movies and television shows.

Opening the door, you hang in the hallway to confirm that there’s no one else there, as there shouldn’t be. There’s eight stations, four on each side of the small room, with a phone and a pane of bulletproof glass. Right away, you have a feeling this is going to be a murder trial, if they’re not even letting you meet with the client out in the open, if they’re monitoring the phone conversation that you’re about to have.

You see a shuffle of movement out of the corner of your eye, and assume that that’s who you’re here to meet, so with your chin held high, you step into the room, and make your way to the visitation booth where a man in a bright orange jumpsuit is waiting on the other side of the glass.

Stopping as quickly as you’ve started, you stand frozen in the middle of the room, blinking away and desperately shoving aside a wave of feelings that have crashed over you at the familiar face behind the glass.

The dark hair, the deep eyes, that proud nose, those full lips, you take it all in with some strange sense of disbelief – surely this must be a dream? It has to be, even as you sit on the little stool and yank the phone off the wall, shoving it against your ear, not even knowing where to start as you try to wrap your mind around the fact that the man, this mystery client…

“Hey sweetheart.” He says, and you could smack him upside the head if only there weren’t this glass between you and Kylo Ren.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you'd like, you can find me on tumblr over at @babbushka to talk about the fic or the AU! <33


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